Kurzbeschreibung

In the modernWestern world, we tend to be insured by the state or for-profit insurers. Wehave privileged this system over mutual or micro-insurance, whose long and richhistory we tend to forget. Yet, mutual and micro-insurance is becomingincreasingly important, both in the Western and in the non-Western world andbears re-examination.This book tracesthe track record of mutual insurance from 1550 to the present, examiningprovisions for burial, sickness, unemployment, old age, and widowhood. Theauthor seeks to address such topics as the type of risks micro-insurancecovered between 1550 and 2015; how it was organized throughout its history; whoprovided the coverage; and how contributions, benefit levels, and conditionshave changed.Importantly, theauthor explores why this system has worked through, and endured, the test oftime. Mutual insurance can, for instance, overcome classic insurance problemssuch as adverse selection and moral hazards. The author demonstrates that thestudy of the position micro-insurance historically assumed in mixed economiesof welfare presents interesting lessons for today’s insurance market, as wellas for today’s mutualism.

Marco H.D. van Leeuwen is a professor of social science history at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. He specializes in the study of global social inequality from 1500 to the present. Professor van Leeuwen is an honorary research fellow at the International Institute of Social History. He has written widely on social inequality and mobility as well as on philanthropy, charity, mutual aid, private and social insurance, and the history of risks. His work has been published in such journals as the American Journal of Sociology,the American Sociological Review, the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, The Economic History Review, theJournal of Social History, Continuity and Change, and the European Sociological Review.